They met in the reading rooms of the Bibliothèque nationale de France — Louis, a historian specialising in medieval French architecture, was cross-referencing château blueprints from the Loire valley. Camille, a restoration architect, had come looking for the same source. They reached for the same volume at the same moment, and the rest, as historians say, is history.

Three years of shared passions — crumbling towers, auction house finds, heated debates about Chenonceau versus Chambord — led to a winter proposal in the lantern-lit corridors of Château de Villandry, after closing hours, with the permission of a curator who had become an unlikely accomplice.

Now they are writing the next chapter of their own château story.